


Severed

by happyisahabit



Series: Starlight Collection [10]
Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Albarn Family Feels, Gen, Guilt, Hi this is angst and I'm barely sorry, Hospitals, Loss, Mastar Week 2019, Recovery, Severed, Spirit and Tsubaki are supporting characters but important, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 04:10:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19433647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happyisahabit/pseuds/happyisahabit
Summary: Inspiration from the book Sever, by Lauren DeStefano: “I never wanted to live forever,” she says. “I just wanted enough time.”Maka's anti-magic wavelength can't heal her.Written for MaStar Week 2019 // Severed.





	Severed

**Author's Note:**

> Mad props to l0chn3ss for the late night beta of this! <3

Her Anti-Magic Wavelength doesn’t heal, just purge. The Black Blood had hastily patched the hole through her chest back together, just one giant bandaid with a pretty black silk bow on top. The deep stab wound from Varja notwithstanding, the ache and pain in her chest explodes the minute her resonance with Soul stops. Maka falls to her knees on the ground in the courtyard of Death’s School. 

She can hear the yells and screams around her, a bit blurry around the edges, as she grabs at her sternum, muscles spasming in an attempt to relieve the pain. She feels everyone who gathers nearby without really registering it. Maka’s had her Soul Sense on for so long now that it’s almost natural, her sixth sense. Papa and Marie hover above her, Soul next to her, Kid runs off to get a healer, and BlackStar…

BlackStar is at a distance and his soul response is faint. Well, faint for BlackStar. It isn’t the beacon of absurd proportions it usually is.

Through the pain, Maka turns on her side and forces her eyes open, not knowing when they closed. Between the feet of the gathering crowd, she sees a shock of blue on the floor. Tsubaki and several others have gathered around BlackStar. Her view is obscured before the agony of her internal wounds takes her consciousness away.

Everything between and after that feels like a blur, a whirlwind of random voices and sounds. Medical devices beeping, Kim’s loud voice, Papa crying, squeaky wheels, curtain rings on a metal rail. Time passes, yet stands still. The only constant is the deep, deep ache left over that the painkillers she’s been given won’t cover up.

When she wakes, truly wakes for longer than a few seconds or minutes between transferring between the operating gurney and the normal cot, Maka feels like she’s been hit by a truck. Or impaled through the torso, which she has. The room is empty and the lights are dimmed to match the setting sun outside.

The beeps and sweeps of the machines next to the bed and the plasticized smell of the mask on her face overtake all of her senses, but Maka closes her eyes to concentrate. First, she looks inward at her own soul. It’s still the white, winged bobble in her chest, but maybe a bit smaller, a bit dimmer. She hopes that in time it’ll get better. Next, she tentatively reaches out into the hospital, trying to find who was nearby, if there were any familiar faces.

There’s nameless nurses and doctors milling about on the evening shift, doing their rounds. Maka finds a few other souls that feel familiar among the patients, stationary and recovering, but not that she could name. She’s almost disappointed, hoping that someone from her cell would be there, could notice her soul response and make her feel a little less alone.

In the end, she falls back asleep with nothing to do but listen to the rhythmic churning of the machines and the drip of her IV.

When Maka next wakes, the mask is removed from her face and she breathes in the sterilized air deeply. The doctor at her side warns her to take small breaths to keep the pain at bay. But the painful prickling in her lungs wakes her fully, brings her to attention. Papa is in the room this time, looking worse for wear in a crumpled suit with the jacket discarded on the chair next to him. There are heavy bags under his eyes and a wane smile on his mouth.

It flashes her back to the weak smile he gave as the moon was covered by the Black Blood and Maka really can’t help the tears that spring into her eyes. “Papa…” she croaks and in a second, he’s at her bedside, bawling.

Once his wave of emotion crests and Maka’s been fed a glass of water, she asks.

“What happened?”

“Oh baby, don’t you worry. There was just- the doctors say- oh, my girl…” Spirit’s words bubble and swirl together, sentences lost to distress. He takes a deep breath to steady himself. “You collapsed, Maka, just fell to the ground. When we brought you in, they found that your- well, they did some tests and saw- your… your bones were shattered.” He shakes in his hands and his voice as he continues. “Sternum, rib cage, two vertebrae…. Lucky Kim was able to take care of it alright, at least get some bone fragments large enough for the surgeons to wire back together. That bastard… he missed your spine, but he clipped it and your organs…”

It’s the most pained, most serious she’s ever seen her father. It feels like he’s talking about someone else; she doesn’t remember the shattering of bones though it clearly happened. There’s no respite for her though as her father is rolling down the hill of her maladies.

“The doctors, including Stein, think the Black Blood saved your lung, but it isn’t… It’s smaller now, stitched back together. Same with some of the other ones. It’s extremely lucky that the Kishin got you there and not- not through the heart.”

The implications of that diagnosis looms overhead but Maka doesn’t let it rain down on her, not yet. “What about…everyone else? What about... what about Star? He…”

Spirit’s silence is telling and it only makes Maka’s terror grow.

“Maka, everyone’s okay, mostly, but you have to understand… With BlackStar, there were… complications.”

In her mind’s eye, she sees him swallow and expel Varja’s energy beam, sees his arm snapped like a toothpick, sees him slammed and crushed into the earth. She remembers the vague soul response from before she fell unconscious. Struck by the thought, she forces her soul sense to expand, rechecking all the patients she had overlooked last time as random people.

She doesn’t have to look far. In the next room over, the tiny dim soul catches her attention. Looking for BlackStar sharpens her focus and his particular frequency is easy to pick out now. It is pulsing, lit and alive, but so different from what she knows. The almost too bright beacon looks now like a flashlight on low battery.

Unbidden, tears rise once again to her eyes, still the wide unseeing green that accompanies her sixth sense. She can’t bring herself to look away from BlackStar’s soul, fearing the flicker in it. Her father grips her hand and she doesn’t complain, just vices her fingers around his. 

“What’s wrong with him?!” she begs, voice cracking from disuse. The doctors and nurses are still futzing about in the background, changing her IV and checking her vitals. She jerks when one of them tests her knees with a small rubber mallet. “S-stop! Papa, Star?”

He pats her hand and looks to the ceiling like it’ll give him strength. “BlackStar isn’t doing well-”

“I can see that!”

“Maka, honey, he broke his back. He’s paralyzed from the chest down.”

“That doesn’t explain- it can’t be why-”

“Why what? He’s recovering like you, it’s just going to take a lot longer from what I heard.”

“No! That can’t be! His soul- it looks like- why is it like that?” She looks at her father, his own soul superimposed on her normal vision and fluttering with concern. Maka sweeps back to BlackStar. “Why is he fading away?”

Spirit had no answer. He looked stricken and Maka remembered that as much as she was close to BlackStar, her father must also have been fond of him as well, always over at their house as the pair of them grew up.

“The doctors said he may never walk again, but his arm was fixed with Kim’s magic. I don’t understand why you’d say that; even Stein seems to think he’ll be alright eventually.”

“He- he swallowed energy from Varja; did they check his throat? Do like, x-rays or scans or anything?”

“Well, of course. They found some lacerations, but the rest…” Spirit says, slumping back into his seat.

“I think I may better answer that,” Stein says from the doorway. “We just got the results back from a blood test we ran on that boy.”

Maka listens intently as Stein speaks of the Black Blood and the type of Soul Force that Varja used. Stein’s working theory is that the combination of the Black Blood’s Madness Amplification properties made the Soul Force more potent and to something akin to blood poisoning. Paralyzed, near mute and poisoned, BlackStar’s condition or recovery time couldn’t be predicted. Maka tries to explain how she saw his soul, its condition and the changes from its usual status, but Stein had already noticed the changes, even if he didn’t know the extent of them.

“Can I visit him?” she asks. “Please?”

“Maka, you’re still bedridden! You won’t be able to get up for-” he father interjects, but Maka holds Stein’s gaze. Maybe she imagines it, but the scarred doctor’s face softens a little.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Maka releases a breath she didn’t even know she was holding.

She doesn’t sleep well that night, trying to keep a vigil on BlackStar’s soul, but her own injuries and exhaustion pull her into the dreamworld. They’re bleak and blackened and Maka wakes in a cold sweat. The hospital food is simple oatmeal for breakfast and Spirit insists on helping her visit BlackStar’s room since Stein has pulled some strings. She does her best not to wince or give him or the nurses any reason to deny her as they shift her into a wheelchair.

Once there, it barely takes two minutes to be at his bedside. There are a number more machines hooked up to BlackStar, including a feeding tube, Holter monitor and some kind of witch spell that hangs over the head of his cot. The purple symbols change every few minutes. For her entire visit, he stays motionless except for his breathing and the movement behind his eyelids. Maka hopes his dreams don’t echo her own.

There is no change in his status over the next week. Maka keeps her vigil and is allowed to visit 3 more times since then. Various members of Spartoi come to see her and she’s glad for the distraction and to see them healthy. Her own pain has decreased greatly, but lingers as an ache throughout her chest. When Soul and Tsubaki leave that day, Spirit arrives to help her into the chair.

He wheels her into BlackStar’s room where the machines continue to pump air into his lungs and monitor his heart rate and blood pressure. The purple symbols hover silently over his head. Maka leans forward onto the bed as she senses Spirit leave the room. BlackStar looks paler and thin, frailer than she’s ever seen him before. Even his blue hair is muted and flat. She brushes some away from his face lightly, tracing her finger over the scar over his eye and nose. On his cheek, she’s surprised to find some peach fuzz, the bare beginnings of stubble and she leans a little closer to see if it was coming in blue.

Unable to tell in the dim hospital light, she tucks her head on her arm by his shoulder and loosely lays her hand over his pulse. Maka falls asleep that way and Spirit doesn’t have the heart to pull her away.

The next two weeks pass in much the same manner, until Maka is cleared to walk. Shaky as a newborn foal, she uses her crutches to visit her childhood friend. His soul is still small and dimmer by the day. Maka’s nerves are shot. Today, when she walks in, there’s something different. His eyes are open.

Pupils contracted and eyes wide, he searches the room and tries to catch up with the world around him. She hurries best she can to his side leaning heavily on the side rails of the bed. His gaze locks on her, wild, concerned. Maka fumbles for the call button.

BlackStar fades in and out irregularly in the days after he wakes, but Maka’s new mobility lets her be there as much as she can. BlackStar’s feeding tube is removed, but his voice comes out only as a scratchy squeak or groan. For while it seems like he’s getting better, but Stein’s prognosis and his soul say otherwise. The improvement is superficial, limited only to his cast removal and ability to eat on his own.

Maka sits with him and Tsubaki one afternoon, just slowly reminiscing about various adventures. BlackStar indicates with his eye rolls and faint hums what his responses are. Until Maka accidentally stumbles into a story that involves Crona and the Black Blood. Words and regrets come tumbling from her lips and Tsubaki comes around the cot to sit next to her, rubbing her back. All the things Maka wanted for herself, for her friends, so much of it is in ruins. She can only hope that everyone can keep living together in the best way they can now, broken from their childhood of soldierdom. 

“I know- I know it isn’t my fault, but I’m just so, so sorry… how could I have let it get that far? How could I have been so blind to everything around us?”

“M-mak…”

She looks up, eyes glassy, at BlackStar. He’s got a hand lifted slightly off the cot towards her, too weak to lift it up properly. He wets his lips and tries to talk again, but doesn’t have anything left. Frustrated, he grunts and holds out his hand, palm up. Maka just stares, but Tsubaki seems to understand. She takes it and Maka sees the seamless resonance they form in an instant. Tsubaki covers her mouth, shoulders shaking at whatever BlackStar conveys to her through their link. She nods and holds her other hand out to Maka.

Maka takes it and at once, BlackStar’s voice floods her head.

“Stupid Maka! It isn’t your fault! None of this is your fault! I can’t even explain how dumb it is to think that you could have somehow prevented this,” he says. His voice is strong as she remembers and she revels in its familiarity. “Even if we could have prevented the Black Blood from spreading, the Kishin from escaping, or any of that other bullshit, it wouldn’t change our reactions. Because they did happen. All of it happened and none of it was supposed to be on our shoulders, but it was so we did the best we could.”

His gaze is intense, searing into her mind’s eye. He flicks his attention to Tsubaki. “I’ve shouldered many regrets, many things from those who passed on. I did so by my choice, no one forced me.

“I knew exactly where you were headed when we were sent to kill Crona and exactly what you’d do. I followed you because I wanted to, because I wanted you to not shoulder that burden you’d put on yourself alone.”

Maka grabs for his other hand and the lack of strength in his returning grip cuts her deep. “Star, I-” she pauses, not knowing how to put into words how much guilt she feels over his injuries, how much she worries for how low his light has gotten.

“Maka, I know. I know you’re scared for me, what you see. I’ve heard what the Doc and those other guys said. You need to accept the facts.”

Tsubaki nearly lets go as a silent sob rips through her, but Maka just holds on tighter. “I won’t, Star. I won’t,” she whispers fiercely. “You’re my oldest friend, you’re- I  _ can’t _ \- you surpassed the gods! How can you ask this of us?”

BlackStar’s serious gaze softens and his thumbs trace lightly over their hands. “I know it’ll be hard. Believe me, I’m not done fighting, but you need to be prepared.” Maka thinks he looks older than he ever has, world-weary. “I… never wanted to live forever. I just-” His eyes roll to the ceiling, head tilted up trying to use gravity to withhold the glassiness in his eyes. “Now, I just want enough time.”

Maka’s lung and a half sting with each anxiety-ridden breath she takes. She and Tsubaki stay in BlackStar’s room that night and no one comments on who cries or how much. One by one, they succumb to the call of the night.

When Maka wakes, Tsubaki sits by the window crying quietly and Maka’s hand is still in BlackStar’s. The two fingers that she has laid against his wrist out of habit feel nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> To anyone upset that Star did not in fact make it through the morning, despite saying he was going to fight, well... sometimes you just can't anymore. It's a horrible, sad fact of life. Please hold on a little longer so you can get some actual fluff from me that will rot your teeth this week.


End file.
